Porta Alchemica, Rome

It's existence dates from the time of the exiled court of Queen Christina of Sweden in Rome, which attracted scholars of both eminent and questionable repute. The usual story goes that the Marquis of Palombara received one such "scholar", an itinerant alchemist going by the name of Stibeum, at a banquet in his palace who claimed to know the secret of chrysopoeia. In the morning he was gone, but left the Marquis a few gold flakes as apparent proof of his knowledge, and instructions written in indecipherable alchemical symbols. The Marquis had the characters inscribed on a doorway in hopes that someone who understood them would pass. Today the door is to be found on a hedge in the Piazza Vittorio.

The inscriptions include common astrological symbols and a Biblical name of God in Hebrew. The two statues flanking the portal were not part of the original doorway, but later additions. These two stunted figures originally came from the ancient temple to Isis and Serapis which stood on the Quirinal Hill.